Irish Soil Information System

SIS SOIL: The new Irish Soil Information System concludes a 5 year programme, supported by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (STRIVE Research Programme 2007-2013) and Teagasc to develop a new 1:250,000 scale national soil map (http://soils.teagasc.ie).

The Irish Soil Information System adopted a unique methodology combining digital soil mapping techniques with traditional soil survey application. Developing earlier work conducted by An Foras Talúntais, the project generated soil-landscape models for previously surveyed counties. These soil-landscape (‘soilscape’) models formed the basis for training statistical ‘inference engines’ for predicting soil mapping units, checked during field survey. 213 soil series are identified, each with differing characteristics, having contrasting environmental and agronomic responses.

This dataset contains a number of fields which explain the characteristics of the soil. This includes soil drainage, soil depth, soil texture, soil organic carbon and mask with/without peat.

Teagasc completed a detailed final report on this project which is available for download from the 'Soils and Subsoils' section of our Get Data download page.